Moss Rose E-Book

Marjorie Bowen

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

“You look as if you was going to cut your throat.”
“Funny, Min, I was thinking of it.”
“Got any beer or gin — a mouthful of the real ‘knock me down’?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Oh, ain’t it shocking. Any luck for the pantomime?”
“No — I’m not sure—”
“I’ve had an offer for one dance and the chorus — but only twenty-five shillings.”
“I can’t get that, I don’t think. Well, what did you come in here for? I’m thinking of suicide, I tell you; a pity you disturbed me. Oh, I’m tired.”
“Who isn’t?”
Minnie Palmer flopped on to the broken stool inside the dressing-room underneath the stage; her dirty white muslin skirts and the tarnished spangles on her tattered bodice were crudely fashioned to represent the petals and calyx of a lily, a torn wig was pulled over her head, her small features were heavily outlined in cheap greasepaint.

Leseprobe

MOSS ROSE

MARJORIE BOWEN (Margaret Gabrielle Vere Long)

1934

© 2023 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782383838050

MOSS ROSE

“Terrors take hold on him like waters, a tempest stealeth him away in the night. The East wind carrieth him afar and he departeth and as a storm it sweepeth him out of his place.”

—Book of Job.

— — — —

“The police always suspected a connection between the two unpunished crimes, which they believed to be the work of one of those malefactors who have an extraordinary power of keeping up appearances in society while capable of the most monstrous actions.”

—Memoirs of Mr. E. M., 1875

— PART 1 —

“You look as if you was going to cut your throat.”

“Funny, Min, I was thinking of it.”

“Got any beer or gin — a mouthful of the real ‘knock me down’?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Oh, ain’t it shocking. Any luck for the pantomime?”

“No — I’m not sure—”

“I’ve had an offer for one dance and the chorus — but only twenty-five shillings.”

“I can’t get that, I don’t think. Well, what did you come in here for? I’m thinking of suicide, I tell you; a pity you disturbed me. Oh, I’m tired.”

“Who isn’t?”

Minnie Palmer flopped on to the broken stool inside the dressing-room underneath the stage; her dirty white muslin skirts and the tarnished spangles on her tattered bodice were crudely fashioned to represent the petals and calyx of a lily, a torn wig was pulled over her head, her small features were heavily outlined in cheap greasepaint.

The other woman glanced at her visitor with cool ease; she was seated by a deal table which was scattered with hares’ feet, rags, glass jewels, pots of cream and rouge, odd thumbed playing cards, mugs and empty bottles — all flyblown and filthy.

Her green and red dress was meant to represent a moss rose, a green cap was tied over her yellow wig; her face, without make-up or powder, looked pallid, almost featureless in the harsh light of the gas-jet which, enclosed in a wire cage, flared from a bracket on the dirty plaster wall, above which were open rafters hung with cobwebs. This bare acrid flame was reflected in the three-cornered fragment of mirror that stood on the dressing-table.

“Why don’t you get some paint on your face?” complained Minnie Palmer. “You look a sight.”

“Go away — I haven’t drink — no gin — no beer — no port wine.”

“Who’s got anything? You’re unlucky, aren’t you, dearie? I always thought you had such style, too — but no one seems to notice it.”

The other’s light-grey eyes flashed and hardened beneath the absurd curls of false hair.

“You little fool, who are you to notice anything? Leave me alone, can’t you?”

“I want a bit of company — seems dismal here tonight — the last performance — the house isn’t half-full, and outside it’s as cold as hell — a black frost, too.”

“Christmas Eve, darling. Don’t forget to hang your stocking up.”

“Well, you needn’t speak so bitter.” Minnie Palmer, the lily, stretched out her plump pink legs in wrinkling cotton flesh-coloured-stockings. “I’ve had a bottle of scent — ‘Jockey Club,’ too — from Charlie — and Jim’s coming along with some bottled porter and fruit from Covent Garden. Ain’t you got anyone? Seems a pity—”

“That you interrupted me — yes — when I was about to cut my throat?” smiled Belle Adair; she picked up from the table a clasp-knife near a platter on which was an end of a loaf, a cold half-eaten red herring and some trimmings of ham fat.

“Well, I never! You needn’t make such silly jokes,” protested Minnie Palmer uneasily. “You always were a rum ’un, you were. Everyone says so—”

“Do they?”

“You don’t make friends easy, do you? The girls are all a bit afraid of you, you know—”

“Are they?”

“I suppose it’s because you’re a lady.”

“What makes you think that I’m — a — a ‘lady’?” asked Belle, still fingering the knife; the steel blade was tarnished with vinegar drops.

“Anyone can see it; and a nice life of it you’ve had, to come to this, eh, Belle? Don’t stare so, dearie. I like you.”

Minnie Palmer rose, hesitated when she pulled open the door and looked into the dark passage and stairs on to which the dressing-rooms gave. The scrapings of the small orchestra sounded from the stage above.

“Pretty — isn’t it? I’d like to dance to that — it’s better than the music we’ve got; they’re using it for the pantomime, too.”

“It’s old — The Sicilian Vespers.’ I remember it in Paris. No, I don’t, I don’t remember anything.” Belle put down the knife and, taking up the hare’s foot, began to brush rouge into her pasty cheeks.

“You’ve been to Paris, have you?” sighed Minnie. “I’ll bet you have, and other places, too. You’re a rum ’un. Jenny’s gone to Paris — he took her after all. My, it makes your mouth water — there’s the great Exhibition next year and the Prince over there, and I don’t know how many other Kings and Queens.”

“Except the Queen of Spain, I suppose.”

“Oh, they don’t ask her — that’s funny, ain’t it? A Queen and no better than we are.” Minnie Palmer laughed, yawned and stretched. “Wouldn’t it be grand? Just to think of it makes you curl up inside—”

“Does it? What difference will it make to Jenny or would it make to you? Neither of you is so very pretty nor so very young, and neither of you has any talent at all. Think of all the charming creatures with money to spend who will be offering themselves for sale in Paris now.”

“I don’t like your way of putting things, I’m sure.” Minnie Palmer tossed up her head with the artificial flaxen curls and dirty lilies, but her face was wrinkled as if she were about to cry. “The world’s not so bad, sneer as you like, and we are better off than some. Poor Daisy’s been round here again.”

Belle Adair was carelessly rubbing powdered charcoal round her eyes as she interrupted in her low, incisive voice:

“Has she? She can’t get work for the pantomime. They won’t look at her.”

“Doesn’t she know it? She wanted to see you it was when you were on the stage — she’s coming back.”

“What for?” Belle blew the dust off the top of the rice powder in a lidless cardboard box printed with bunches of violets. “I see her every night.”

“She said she was going out this evening, she wanted to borrow your salmon-pink feathers.”

Belle Adair was silent; her face looked odd and ugly under the disfigurement of rice powder and rouge, her eyes were restless and impatient in the smudges of black.

Minnie Palmer rose; her healthy young body, inclined to fullness, seemed about to burst the sweat-stained, spangled bodice; she hitched up one of the sagging pink stockings and tightened the garter of frazzled ribbon.

“What would you give to get out of all this?” she asked vigorously, turning her insolent, good-humoured direct glance towards the red and green figure staring into the fragment of mirror. “I don’t know how you stand it, that I don’t. How do they think I’m going on in these shoes? Mind you, I went past Claridge’s today — well, why shouldn’t we have a taste of it? I mean we don’t have any luck.” Probing the other’s silence she added: “You’ve known what it might be — before you got into trouble. Oh, I’m cold! A glass of port with a lot of sugar in it — or threepennyworth of ‘cream of the valley’ — haven’t you sixpence, Belle, dear? Bobs would run for it in a moment. Just to warm us up before we go on?”

“I’ve nothing. You asked me what I’d give to get out of here? Well, I’ve nothing to give, don’t you understand? Nothing to offer you for drink, nothing to give — nothing—”

“Stop a bit!” cried Minnie Palmer, in a half-whispering tone. “You frighten me speaking so cruel — it is Christmas Eve, as you said, and I mean to have some merry-making—”

“Go away! Go away!” Belle looked over her shoulder and spoke with quiet vehemence; Minnie, afraid, paused at the door.

“There’s the call — well, don’t you be late, or it will be the deuce and all—”

Tapping her small foot in the worn pink ballet shoe, Belle repeated:

“Go away! — will you, go away!”

Minnie Palmer hunched up her thick shoulders impudently, to cover her timidity.

“Oh, here’s a set-out! Don’t bother yourself, my pet, about me.”

As soon as she had flounced away, Belle went swiftly to the cupboard, in the corner of which hung some theatrical dresses, skirts, gowns and shawls, bonnets and pairs of cloth boots which, tied by their laces, dangled from a peg. In the pocket of a trailing skirt of white gauze she found a flask of gin and with an air of dry reserve, tipped it up and drank.

— — —

It was a pretty scene, this divertissement that was one of the music-hall ‘turns.’ At the back of the stage a transparency showed a terrace of blooms behind a gigantic silver cobweb spangled with dewdrops. Either side, leaves of gold tinsel quivered on invisible net. In the centre the fairies from the flowers gathered round the “Queen of the Flowers,” a white rose, holding a wand on the end of which sparkled a glistening star. Her two principal attendants were Minnie Palmer, the lily, and Belle Adair, the moss rose; beyond them was the violet, the carnation, the tiger lily, the sunflower, the iris and the hollyhock, an odd bouquet swiftly forming under the rosy glow from the lanterns in the wings, in front of which red paper had been fixed. The footlights had also been shrouded with soft shades and this warm hue of the foreground contrasted with the ethereal silverness of the enchanted distance.

The music, taken from popular tunes, was soft and flowing; particularly pleasing was the little waltz to which the Moss Rose circled for her short pas seul. This melody, dedicated to a lovely and beloved English Princess on her recovery from rheumatic fever, was well known and much liked in London, and the audience tapped feet and half-emptied beer mugs, hummed with zest as the familiar opening bars were struck up by violins and piano.

The flower fairies withdrew into the painted side-slips and the Moss Rose pirouetted on her toes; Minnie Palmer, striking an attitude beside her, whispered: “Pretty, isn’t it? Don’t you wish that you were dancing it with a real gentleman?”

With her arms folded on her breast Belle Adair waltzed round the stage; she was taller, more slender than any of the other dancers, she had a good ear and was light of foot. In the flattering blurred light she gave an illusion of beauty; the swirling pink skirts like petals, the green bodice like folded leaves, the gracefully held head with the verdant cap — something ardent, proud and swift in poise and movement — had a transient quality of enchantment. But the audience was not pleased, the applause was feeble; it was always the same with Belle, she never made a success, there was something remote and alien about her, some quality of disdain and coldness that made people uneasy, even hostile. The music jerked into a polka, Minnie. Palmer bounced forward, and, winking and grinning, flung her shapely legs, in the pink stockings and laced boots, about in a frenzied caricature of a ball dance. The audience roared with delight. The Moss Rose, forgotten, slipped in amidst the other fairies and, mechanically smiling, raised one end of a garland of paper blossoms that was lowered from the flies to enchain the girls with festoons of flowers as the curtain fell and the stage hands came on to clear the stage for the next turn — a Chinese juggler.

— — —

“I ought to have the waltz in the pantomime,” complained Minnie Palmer. “I look better in pink, too. Say, please, that I ought to have the waltz!”

She stood in the wings, breathing hard, clinging to the arm of the tired stage manager who leant against one of the roughly painted boards that was daubed to look like a tree..

“You do fine and well as you are, don’t you, Missus?” He had been playing the clown in an earlier turn with the ventriloquist and his face was still streaked with red and white.

“Pretty well, but Belle’s no good — and that’s such a sweet, pretty tune.” She hummed a bar of “Moss Rose.”

“Please now — Belle’s more like a lily, I’m sure.”

He laughed so loud that she was startled: “We’ll see in the morning, Missus. Belle’s a fine dancer as I think, and ‘Moss Rose’ is her style — genteel and dainty. You can see that she’s a lady.”

“Do you think that’s what they want? Genteel indeed! Why doesn’t she go where she belongs if she’s a lady — a real, high-born lady?”

“The more’s the pity if she’s a lady, Missus. But, I’d have to ask Mr. Lode about changing parts, and it’s getting late and damned cold, so be off with you. Besides, this is the last performance before the pantomime and I don’t know as the ballet will go into ‘Puss in Boots’ even now.”

Belle passed them as they were talking; she had been lingering at the back of the darkened, draughty stage where, without the lights and the music, the scene before which she had danced was merely tinfoil paper, dirty rags and chalked canvas. An odious spot, but less odious than the streets; a smell of sawdust, oranges and stale beer came from behind the drop-cloth that formed the background for the juggler.

She knew at once that they were discussing her and that Minnie Palmer was trying to get the “Moss Rose” dance for the pantomime which opened on Boxing Day. Perhaps they would turn her out of “Puss in Boots” for which she had been engaged; she was not very successful and they would be glad to save the thirty shillings a week. Even if they allowed her to stay she would not get another engagement easily afterwards; she could not please, no, never had she been able to please a crowd — nor even single individuals, “save a few, and they are lost.” Failure everywhere, failure. “Genteel and dainty,” she had heard the miserable Figg call her, and yet any coarse fellow, drunk on bottled porter or gin, would pass her by for Minnie Palmer.

“What am I thinking? I am tired, tired out. If only I had some more drink or some opium, and a little poison to put in it, so that I could sleep and never wake again.”

When she returned to the dismal little dressing-room, screened off so carelessly from the piled-up properties and the green room, she found that the three girls with whom she shared it had left the theatre, but that Daisy Arrow was waiting for her.

“Oh, you!” Belle tore off the green cap, the wig. “Why do you come here pestering me?”

“I want the pink feathers, my pet. Minnie told you, did she? I’m going out tonight.”

“Where?”

“Oh, the Argyll Rooms or the Alhambra, anywhere there’s a bit of fun.”

“You’re a fool,” said Belle with an emphasis of her detached air of cold ease. “Who will you find tonight? A fog, cold Christmas Eve — and those feathers aren’t for the winter — they’ll seem silly a night like this.”

“Maybe they’ll make someone look at me — Belle, if I find—”

“Stop — you know I won’t hear of these things — from you. Be quiet. Why should I give you the feathers? They’re fresh and clean, aren’t they? I’m keeping them for the summer.”

“I’ll pay for them tomorrow, if I have any luck. I suppose you’d like a couple of shillings, my love?” Daisy Arrow spoke flatly without wheedling or insolence. “I heard from Min that they didn’t like your dance — ‘Moss Rose’ is so sweet, too. The Lord Harry knows what they do want. Come with me to the Argyll, Belle, dear.”

“Why?”

“We might pick someone up. Oh, don’t stare at me with that sneer; maybe I’m not good enough for the back row of the ballet — but I might find some fool — drunk enough.”

“Did I say I wouldn’t have any of your nasty talk?”

“What’s the use of being so hoity-toity?” Daisy Arrow spoke without hope or anger. “If you won’t come, well, lend me your feathers.”

“A night like this! No. No one but a drab would wear pink feathers in the street in a fog.”

“No one but a drab would be in the street, would she — dearie — a night like this?” Daisy Arrow spoke in the same quiet tone. “They won’t have me for the pantomime — it’s remembered against me that I’m not strong and cough, and sometimes faint. I’ve got one and threepence and I owe Mother Bulke fifteen shillings.”

Belle Adair stripped off her stage clothes until she stood in her broken stays and faded petticoat, a beautifully shaped woman with exquisite arms and shoulders. Her hair, flattened and greasy from the wig, was dark, the colour of a dried bay-leaf, and was fastened in a knot at the base of her neck; her face, on which the paint flared and melted, was pinched, faintly distorted.

“Ma Bulke wouldn’t turn you out, Christmas Eve. And if she did? — What’s before either of us? As well now as tomorrow, or the next day.”

“You’ll speak different when you’ve a drain inside you. Make haste, it’ll soon be too late for anything.” Daisy Arrow sat up. “I’m hungry.”

She was a delicate-looking woman who had been lovely; her hair was a magnificent chestnut-copper hue and contrasted finely with the exquisite outline of her small features. Her throat was long and graceful, but her complexion was blotched, her teeth broken and her large dark eyes injected with blood, while her wide lips were ragged and shapeless. Beneath her cleverly worn Cashmere shawl, threadbare and smelling of the cleaner’s resin and sulphur, showed a dark skirt with carefully mended flounces and thin-soled boots, varnished over the cracks. On the knot of her sumptuous hair was a faded bonnet of green taffeta that emphasised her shabbiness; her air was one of lassitude and fatigue.

Belle Adair glanced over her, then pulling open the cupboard, took out from beneath the white gauze skirt, in the pocket of which was the empty gin bottle, a lidless cardboard box; in this, wrapped in silver paper, was a plume of curled ostrich feathers of an unusual tint of livid pink. Why she had kept and treasured this scrap of finery when all else had gone, Belle did not know; she had worn it on the stage once when she had played a super’s part of a society beauty at a fête of pasteboard grass and paper flowers. She kept it at the theatre as the other women at Mrs. Bulke’s would always be wanting to borrow it, and even here it was not safe; even Daisy Arrow had to remember and come after it. Belle glanced at the dirty knife by the red herring and the curling, glistening strips of ham fat, and smiled. How odd that she was concerned with this worthless piece of rubbish, she who had been about to make herself ready for a pauper’s grave. She flung the plume on to the dressing-table.

“Take it — and go away.”

With a flash of animation that made her appear quite charming, Daisy Arrow snatched the feathers; the mount was garnished by a cluster of dried grasses and the iris-hued head of a bird of paradise. With a skilful hand the young woman, peering into the scrap of mirror, arranged the plumes at the side of her bonnet and pinned it into place so that the rosy fronds fell becomingly on to the lustrous hair.

Belle, huddling into her dark street clothes, studied her keenly, curiously.

“I wonder what you’ve been in your time, Daisy Arrow? And what your name really is, or how it is that you’re quite so friendless, wretched and desperately poor?”

“I suppose, my pet, I could put all these questions to you and get no answer. What does it matter?”

“You’re right — what does it matter? But you’re a little better than the others,” retorted Belle with her dry, casual ease. “I should say you’d had some education. Shall I take this umbrella? No, it’s foggy, not raining, and the cover is full of holes — yet I’ve no other shawl, and if this were to get sodden…I ought to have used the knife.”

“You’re a rum ’un,” said Daisy Arrow, pulling out her curls under the bright feathers. “The things you think of! Come to the Argyll Rooms and you’ll forget about umbrellas and shawls — and the foggy night.” She peered closer with a sudden keenness at the other woman: “Used the knife? What do you mean?” She put her hand across her throat and as Belle disdained to answer, added: “I see — well, here’s temptation out of the way, dearie.” She picked up the coarse clasp-knife, shut it, and slipped it into her beaded reticule. “I’ll throw it away—”

“Get along or you’ll be late,” said Belle, watching her without comment on her action.

Daisy Arrow rose; she had a certain art in arranging her worn clothes that made her look quite elegant; the fantastic feathers did not appear unsuitable on that well-set burnished hair; she peered at herself in the mirror, turning her head gracefully over her shoulder.

“You think that I look like a lady, do you?” she smiled.

“No, you are just ladylike, genteel. I dare say you were a gentlewoman’s maid or in a small shop — haberdasher’s, milliner’s, or something like that.”

For a second Daisy Arrow looked startled, then her weary indolence dropped over her like a veil.

“Well, it ain’t no good for us to pry into each other’s past, is it, dearie? They all say that you’re a real born lady — but that hasn’t helped you much, has it?”

“No, I’m as nasty a slut as you are, or as Minnie Palmer is, or as Mrs. Bulke herself. I’m turning out the gas before old Bobs comes in, scolding and swearing.”

Daisy Arrow pulled open the door.

“Well, wish me good luck, my pet.”

“Good luck,” said Belle, and as the other young woman drifted away into the darkness beyond the door, she added listlessly: “What good luck could you have, save to drop into the earth — easily, quickly?”

— — —

Belle Adair hesitated as she left the Cambridge Music Hall; in front of the lit portico the bills for the pantomime were already in place; above the door a huge painted, booted cat stared into the fog, and the gaslights flared on the crimson letters: “Puss in Boots.” The bitter frost and fog had cleared the streets of all but the homeless; the huddled filth of Holborn was bidden by the thick swathes of dirty vapour that the street lamps only faintly dispersed. Belle, whose clothes were plain and dark, and about whose person there was nothing flamboyant or voluptuous, did not in the least resemble the capering Moss Rose fairy in the pink tights and rosy skirts, but rather seemed a nursery governess or some shabby genteel widow. As, urged by a sudden impulse, she turned into the fog, there was nothing remarkable about her, save her proud poise and the swiftness of her walk. Pulling her veil over the face from which the grease-paint had been too hastily wiped, leaving stains behind on the small features, she made her rapid simple calculations. Thirty shillings when she was paid yesterday — ten shillings for two weeks’ rent, five shillings for food and gin — fifteen shillings, then, to last the week and she must have new stockings, soap, her shoes mended. She had meant to buy Tommy Bulke a toy for Christmas, but apathy had prevented her and now the shops would be shut. Supposing the Cambridge decided that they did not want her in the pantomime and gave the Moss Rose waltz to lively Minnie Palmer? Perhaps she was a fool not to have gone with Daisy Arrow to the Alhambra or the Argyll Rooms — but it would have been no good, shabby, dull and weary as she was. Even Daisy, who was prettier, would be disappointed; she would come home alone and cry herself to sleep as she so often did — what an odious thing that her room was so near that you could hear almost everything that she did.

Bell paused in the fog; a constable in his oilskin cape passed, eyeing her suspiciously. “I suppose, if I go on like this, I shall get to prison. It might happen any night. Why didn’t I use that knife? I was too tired. There’s the river, but it’s too far. Daisy said that she was hungry — well, so am I — it will be too late to ask Mrs. Bulke for anything. I had better get a drink. Sixpence, a shilling, yes, that would be well spent on a drink, something strong.”

— — —

The gin palaces of Holborn were nearly as sumptuous as those of the Tottenham Court Road or Drury Lane. Belle had the choice of several brilliant establishments as she proceeded slowly over the greasy pavement through the murk. The performance at the Cambridge would not yet be over; it was about eleven o’clock and the shopkeepers were putting up shutters and lowering their blinds; there was a glimpse through the fog of scarlet cheese and pallid butter as the cheesemonger shrouded his windows; there was the tinkle of the chemist’s shop-door bell as it closed for the night, a glow of light from the baked-potato man’s fire, where a few ragged children clustered to enjoy the warmth, and in the gutter a woman trailed with her arms folded in a ragged shawl, muttering a song in a broken falsetto. Belle passed these, into the darkness of the fog again that caused her eyes to smart and started her coughing; she then paused before the gas lamps in gilt burners flaring behind the plate-glass window of “The Bunch of Grapes.” Belle pushed open the ground-glass door marked “Wine promenade” and joined the close-pressed crowd about the gleaming mahogany bar beyond which rows of painted casks showed behind the carefully polished brass rail. Belle edged through the crowd with a detached air and leant against the counter, eyeing the baskets of soft biscuits and raisin cake with disgust. She ordered half a quarters of gin and peppermint hot from the young woman with the large blue glass beads who was dispensing the spirits. As her lips sipped the mixture her cold eyes, under the dirty veil turned up to just above her mouth, glanced at some of her companions; the man in the moth-eaten fur cap with the diseased face, three bonnetless washerwomen drinking rum-shrub, the Irish labourer, the tattered women munching stale seed-cake and sipping port — all ill, wretched, hideous.

“If I continue to drink I shall soon be like these — how long would it take? It has not really got hold of me yet. I could stop it if I wanted. Sometimes I take nothing for days together — yes, if it were worth while and something else offered, I could stop. But it is not worth while and nothing else offers.”

No one took any notice of her; when she had first entered public-houses she had been the object of much ribald attention, now she could stay as long as she pleased and no one troubled her, save for a formal commonplace or a maudlin confidence.

“I must be beginning to look just like these others — a draggled hussy — no one sees that my hands, my figure are different, perhaps they are not different any longer. When did I begin to be so familiar with this? When I left him — but haven’t I decided that I won’t remember anything?”

Behind the blur given to her senses by fatigue and alcohol her mind was cool and acute, she did not for a moment lose her reserved dignity; when she had finished her drink she pulled down her veil. After the sordid filth of the under-stage dressing-room from which she had come, and before the sordid misery of her cold bedroom in Great Hogarth Street, there was a certain solace in the opulent vulgarity of the gin palace, in the gilt, the bright new paint, the stucco flowers, the polished mirrors, the gleaming casks, the fan-shaped flares of gas which ate up the dirty yellow fog. But she spent no more on drink than the shilling she had allowed herself. When she had reached that limit she lifted her faded flounces from the sanded floor and with a lady’s smile of detached courtesy, passed through the drinkers and out into the fog which had become so dense that the street lamps were but dim haloes in the dingy murk. Belle knew her way perfectly; for some time she had been going between Great Hogarth Street and the Cambridge; she knew all the shops, the chemists with the poppy-heads, the chandlers, the sweetstuff woman where the lollipops were boiled in the basement and filled the air with a smell of hot sugar, the baker, the bird fancier, and, at the corner where she had to turn, the pawnbroker who called himself a silversmith. Even through the fog the transparency at the door with three red balls on a blue ground and some rubbed letters showed brightly against the gaslight behind. There were some of Belle’s one-time possessions among the stringless fiddles, cracked flutes, riveted china and cheap silver articles in the pawnshop windows, among them a plain ring which was inscribed inside with a man’s name and the motto “Thine, for ever and ever.” Belle turned this corner guided by the smear of red and blue on the door and saw a woman seated huddled in the entrance — it was the singer whom she had passed in the gutter before she entered the gin palace. Belle paused; the creature reminded her of Daisy Arrow — the reddish hair, the tattered silk bonnet, the thin burst shoes, the dirty pink stockings full of holes — Daisy, perhaps next year or the year after, Daisy, gripped by consumption and refused admittance to the Alhambra or the Argyll Rooms. “Myself, next year or the year after.”

She took a shilling from her pocket and stooped over the woman who seemed unconscious or asleep or drunk.

“If I were to give you this, would you know where to get a lodging for the night?”

“Eh?” The woman looked up from the damp step, coughed and pulled together her gaudy thin attire round her. “What did you say?”

“A shilling is all I can spare.”

The woman clutched it, muttering stupidly.

“Can you find a bed?” asked Belle.

“A bed? What use is a bed to me?” She tottered to her feet. “Are the public-houses still open?”

“Yes, I have just come from ‘The Bunch of Grapes.’”

“That’s across the road, isn’t it?”

“Yes; good-night.”

Belle watched the slovenly figure stagger from her huddled position and disappear into the fog; there was someone more wretched than herself, someone who would not be employed even at the Cambridge, to whom even Mrs. Bulke would not give a room, someone who had no hope of anything save a bed at a pauper ward, a grave in the pauper’s ditch. “I don’t know why I don’t end it now, I really don’t.”

Without haste or agitation Belle went down the long street with the broken flagstone pavement, passed better shops shuttered against thieves, passed genteel houses darkened for the night, with here and there the light of a Christmas party showing through a chink in the curtains and shutters, passed the open spaces, crowded with bare trees, of handsome squares, and so to Great Hogarth Street and to No. 12 of a row of neatly built houses with closely veiled, dirty windows with broken panes, with worn doors that stood ajar, and broken rusty railings guarding areas. There was a light in the basement of No. 12 and the sound of cheerful, hoarse voices; across the tattered muslin at the barred windows had been hung a festoon of artificial flowers.

Belle entered; the door slipped from her cold hand and slammed. A voice shouted up from the basement:

“Who’s that?”

“Belle — shall I leave the door shut?”

“Not yet, Daisy ain’t back — give her a bit longer.”

“But it’s nearly midnight, dark and foggy — someone might slip in.”

“Not here, dearie!” bellowed the voice from below good-humouredly. “They know us — come along down and have a drain. We are having a bit o’ supper, Tommy and all, ain’t we — Tommy, my love?”

Belle left the door ajar and leant against the dirty wall of the narrow passage; darkness was round her in rising waves; she had wished for death, attempted death that very evening, but now, suddenly, she was in a panic at the thought of the darkness of annihilation, of the damp clay of a London grave, afraid of the end, even of the end of misery. She clasped her bosom and her eyes fluttered for a second as if a mortal chill was on her flesh. The hoarse invitation was repeated from the basement. Belle fled from the dark and stumbled down the stairs to the light.

— — —

The little kitchen was cheerful, the large grate had been newly blackened, there were sprigs of holly behind the pictures of Her Majesty and the Duke of Wellington, a stiff bough of evergreen had been thrust behind the dark print of The Last Judgement. There was a white twill cloth on the table and plenty of food remains, kidney pies, cold ham, cakes, Dorset butter, Dr. Kitchener’s Zest, Harvey’s Relish, bottles of stout, of sherry and of port. Molly, the Irish servant, was looking after Tommy, a pallid boy of ten years old who was wearing a blue paper cap and hugging a wooden horse painted with large black spots. Mrs. Bulke was making tea from a huge sooty kettle for a few of her lodgers who declared themselves “off the drink,” being already crying drunk and supporting themselves against the table while they exchanged reminiscences of some lost or imagined gentility when Christmas Eve had been “different.” The company was completed by a very old woman who kept a cast clothes shop of the better sort and who found many clients among the ladies of No. 12. Wrapped in a pale Andalusian shawl, still exquisite in texture even though long since discarded by some fastidious lady’s maid, Mrs. MacKinnon sipped her port quietly and contributed nothing to the merriment which Mrs. Bulke sustained with lively talk, with winks, with snatches of song, and at all of which Molly, joggling the boy on her knee, laughed inordinately.

With ready kindness the landlady pushed Belle into the shiny horsehair chair by the grate.

“If your feet ain’t wet, dearie. And you late! Such a night! Daisy said she was going to fetch you — why didn’t you go with her?”

“I didn’t wish to — I was tired.”

“You’ll do yourself no good moping. Fill Mrs. Mac’s glass, Molly. There ain’t so many good people in the world that one can afford to miss ’em.”

“Not in these hard times,” croaked the old woman, extending a dirty gnarled hand holding her empty tumbler, tapping her forehead with a finger of the other.

“Isn’t Tommy up very late?” shuddered Belle, crouching over the red coals showing behind the bars to which hung fragments of half-burnt orange peel and sausage skin.

“Bless ’is heart! It’s a party, ain’t it? And he’s enjoying his little self, ain’t he?”

Fanny Bulke smiled round good-humouredly on her guests; she was a handsome woman with a hard-grained red in her cheeks, a dark down on her upper lip, a coil of brassy gold hair round her head. She had been in a circus in her youth, a trick rider until she broke her hipbone, and there was something strong and bold about her, as if she was used to handling a whip. Her second-hand dress of puce cloth, garnished with torn braid and rows of buttons with gaps in their ranks, and the heavy folds of thick cloth, gave an almost monstrous air to her massive figure. She seemed to loom, to swell, to fill the room, there was a certain menace even in her limp.

“Can’t you give us a tune, Belle? Can’t you play and sing to us a bit? That ‘Moss Rose’ now, that you danced in so nicely.”

“I don’t think I’m going to dance in it any more; if they keep it for the pantomime, they’ll give it to Minnie Palmer.”

Mrs. Bulke was always loud in sympathy, in condemnation, too.

“You ought to make more of yourself, you don’t take any trouble; there’s some burnt cork on your face still and not a bit of rouge.”

“Well, you find me past everything, no doubt,” said Belle, crouching over the grate and peering into the ashes which were mingled with eggshells and apple parings. “And I do too, I think.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, dearie.” Mrs. Bulke lowered her powerful voice. “But you seem to make no effort, not generally speaking. Why, you’re not so old — and with a bit of trouble you might take heart again.”

Belle glanced over her shoulder with a smile so bitter and ironical that even Mrs. Bulke became a little downcast and sighed, smoothing the waist of the puce frock. But she was not silenced.

“There’s Florrie and May,” she whispered, jerking her gaudy head towards the two women at the table. “They’re a bit older than you, aren’t they? They don’t take much trouble with themselves, do they?”

“No, I’ve often wondered why you keep them on or how they pay their rent and buy their food.”

Mrs. Bulke winked, and they gave a drunken grin.

“You might ’ave guessed. They find me new lodgers. They go to the stations and the coach-stops, and if there’s any nice fresh young girl as doesn’t know where to go, Florrie and May make up to her and tell her of No. 12 and the cosy place it is.”

“Oh!” whispered Belle; she stared down at her hands, opening and shutting them, examining them as if she had never seen them before.

“They brought Jenny here.”

“Jenny who went to Paris? I remember how she cried, poor little dear.”

“Well,” smiled Mrs. Bulke, “we all cried once, I dare say, and I don’t suppose she’s crying now, do you, dearie? What I was thinking was, if you’re out of luck, or they don’t keep you on at the ’alls — why, you might go out with Florrie and May sometimes. You’re genteel, Belle, a lady born, like. And there are some as wouldn’t come for the others who’d listen to you.”

“Who would they be?”

“Young, silly girls as come from good homes who want a bit of fun, but who’d be scared of Florrie — and May’s not too careful with her talk.”

Belle rose suddenly; she lurched forward and it seemed as if she were about to fall.

“Eh, dearie, you take a cup of tea, good and strong — it’s the drink on an empty stomach.”

“I haven’t touched a drop of your stuff.”

“But you had some on the way, I know you did, now then? Come now, a cup of tea.”

“Nothing like it,” nodded Mrs. MacKinnon, “nothing like it,” she repeated with a shrill giggle, stroking Maggie Tealeaves the cat.

Belle moved to the piano with the stained and faded, pleated red silk front that stood in the corner, and sank on to the rubbed leather music-stool. It had been left behind by a lodger who had stayed a year at No. 12, then gone out one day and never come back.

“That’s right,” smiled Mrs. Bulke. “Now, Tommy, pet, you listen to the pretty tune. La, la” — she hummed to herself.

Belle had her back to them all so that no one could see the distortions of her face. As her fingers ran over the stained keys, some of which were mute and some jangled, she stared at the picture of The Last Judgement under the fly-spotted glass that hung before her and above the piano, half-shadowed by that stiff bough of green yew. Such riven heavens, such split rocks, such cascades of fire, such giving up of the quick and the dead to the terrors of eternity! Did the painter think that grandiose scene could frighten anyone, those clean, cool angels, that wide expanse of pure black sky, even those darkling pits — could they alarm one who had not the courage to slit her throat? One who had just been asked to wheedle young, pretty, fresh girls to No. 12?

Belle played on the broken piano.

“She’s got a good figure,” mused Mrs. Bulke to herself, looking at the neat shape on the fat stool. “And with a nice pair of stays — I don’t know why she don’t do better.”

They listened to the music, all but Tommy, whose wizened, dirty face had fallen against Molly’s slatternly bosom in uneasy sleep and wheezy, heavy breathing.

Belle began to sing; she had a low pleasing voice, true and clear.

The five women were impressed, not pleased; the song was sad, remote, you couldn’t beat time to it; when Belle finished abruptly Florrie sniffed with relief.

“What’s the name of that?” asked old Mrs. MacKinnon shakily and cautiously.

“‘The Wanderer to the Moon’ — it ought to be sung by a man.”

“I don’t think it ought to be sung at all,” complained May. “Makes you think of a hymn.”

“When did you last hear a hymn?” Belle swung round on the stool.

“Oh, I don’t know,” muttered the sleepy fat woman, taken aback. “Hark! there’s the door!” cried Mrs. Bulke with a smart vivacity that silenced the others. “Daisy at last, and she ain’t alone, neither. No,” added the landlady, pulling the door open and listening up the basement stairs — “She’s brought a gentleman home.”

— — —

Florrie and May, startled out of their drowsy, cosy reminiscences, echoed with drunken gravity: “Daisy’s brought a gentleman home!”

The kitchen door, which Mrs. Bulke had hung ajar, was pushed open and Daisy’s head, with crooked pink plume, tattered, loosened green bonnet, slipping knot of red hair, flushed face, looked in. Her air was one of triumph. Belle had never seen her look so young and well.

“Come in, dearie,” said Mrs. Bulke, in a carefully lowered voice, “come in and tell us all about it.”

Daisy entered; she had been drinking and was walking unsteadily; in her arms was a large bag of apples, oranges and nuts.

“Here’s something for your Christmas, Ma, we came round by Covent Garden.”

She tumbled the fruit in front of the two women seated at the table and laughed to see the walnuts and chestnuts roll among the soiled glasses and cups.

“You don’t know the luck I’ve had,” she leered with her hand on her full bosom.

“Well, I’m glad, I’m sure, dearie, if it wasn’t time! What about the rent?”

“I’ll pay you in the morning.”

“Only my joke — why not ask the gentleman in — for a drain — a cold night like this?”

The words seemed to penetrate Daisy’s stupid bemusement; she looked round the kitchen and at the occupants, all of whom were staring at her; Belle, observing her from the piano-stool, saw a look of cunning come into the large eyes inflamed from fog and drink.

“No — he is a gentleman,” said Daisy sharply. “And I don’t want any more drink — no, I’ve got to keep sober.”

“Sober!” grinned Morrie with a hiccough. “And a gentleman! My! We’re quite the lady, aren’t we?”

“You’ve never seen a gentleman — not to speak to,” retorted Daisy fiercely.

“Not here, not at No. 12 — that I ain’t — and as for you, my beauty, as for you, you vixen—”

Florrie had squared her elbows in a threatening attitude; Mrs. Bulke intervened.

“Leave her alone, can’t you? What business is it of yourn?” She added a few sharp foul words that reduced the other to a whining submission, then turned to Daisy. “Well, dearie, if you won’t bring him down, you go up to him — you don’t want him to think better of it, do you, and slip away out into the fog?”

“He’d wait for me. All night and all day, he’d wait for me!”

She snatched the bonnet from her graceful head and swirled it round on her hand.

“It brought me luck, Belle, didn’t it? Your beautiful plume! It was that he noticed, the pink plume on my chestnut hair — it reminded him — never mind of what. You’d hie it back, wouldn’t you, dearie?”

“No, I don’t want it any more. It’s dirty from the fog and uncurled from the damp.”

Daisy Arrow tossed her head, sending the shining hair in waves of brightness down her back, laughed unsteadily, and swayed to the door, muttering: “You don’t know my luck.”

Belle rose from the piano-stool.

“Tommy ought to be in bed — look at him now — he’s fast asleep.”

“The pet,” said Mrs. Bulke absently. “Take him along, Molly, do.” She stood at the door, listening intently.

A man’s step, a man’s voice in the passage above and Daisy Arrow laughing shrilly.

“Can’t hear what he says,” muttered Mrs. Bulke, “but he do sound like a gentleman — well, well—” she patted her hair; her expression was satirical and incredulous. “Come along, Florrie. Come along, May. I’m going to put the gas out — you’ll have to be finding your way home, Mrs. Mac — or p’raps Molly will go with you when she’s put Tommy to bed.”

— — —

Mrs. Bulke and Belle remained alone in the kitchen; the landlady was sorting out what was worth preserving among the eatables and putting them into a cupboard, then stacking up the dirty crocks for Molly to take into the scullery.

Belle remained on the piano-stool, her hands clasped on her knees.

“Ain’t you tired, dearie?” asked the yawning landlady pointedly.

“Yes, I’m tired, but I don’t feel as if I could sleep tonight. My room is so cold.”

“Them what pays for fires gets them,” said Mrs. Bulke pleasantly. “And you’ve a grate what draws fine.”

As Belle didn’t reply, the landlady continued, jerking off the soiled white cloth:

“You think about what I was saying about helping Florrie — that would mean a bit of fire whenever you felt like it have this drain of porter?” She held up a nearly empty bottle to the gas and peered at the contents.

“No — I’ve had enough.”

“You’re wise. I’ve always been careful, too. Never let the drink get the better of you — not once — or you’re done. Who is this coming down?”

A light, uncertain step on the stair, a push at the door, and Daisy Arrow entered, her bright hair fallen on her shoulders, her bodice open on her white bosom. She held her gaping reticule in her hand and took from it half a sovereign.

“Here you are, Ma — ten shillings off the rent.”

“Thank you, dearie; anything I can do for you?”

“No.” Daisy Arrow stared at Belle, who rose and came to the table. “Sure you don’t want your feathers back?”

“I’ve said I don’t. Daisy, who is it you’ve got upstairs?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I heard his voice,” replied Belle dryly, “and I thought it sounded like that of a gentleman — an educated man — it seemed curious to hear such accents in this place — and it didn’t sound quite English—”

Dairy Arrow laughed.

“I’m sorry I can’t show him to you, Belle, my pet — he’s a foreigner — and shy.”

“A foreigner!” echoed Mrs. Bulke in disgust.

“Don’t you turn up your nose, Ma, you wait till tomorrow — I’ll give you a Christmas present — I’ll have a few things to show you, see if I don’t.”

“Be quiet, Dairy Arrow — and shut up your bag — look, you’ve still got that dirty clasp-knife in it.” As Belle spoke she snapped the gilt clasps of the reticule from which the white china beads dripped off the broken threads, and drew Daisy towards the door; again the light, uncertain step on the stair, ascending unsteadily now.

“Well,” yawned Mrs. Bulke, “there’s an end of her, I hopes — Mrs. Mac’s been took home, Tommy’s in bed, and Moll’s snoozing off — that’ll be enough for today.”

She stretched up to turn off the gas. Belle had found and lit a candle; as the hard brilliance in the glass globe faded out, there was only the glow from the embers and the weak flame of the hard candle.

— — —

The two women were standing in the flame-shot dark, pausing, one reluctant and alert, one yawning and sleepy, about to leave the kitchen, when again there was the swish of flounces, the tap of unsteady heels, and Daisy Arrow entered, she also with a candle in a tin stick held in a shaking hand.

“What now?” asked Mrs. Bulke with an air of authority, peering through the crossing light of the flames.

“I want some champagne,” smiled Daisy.

“Champagne? That’s a gentleman’s drink, ain’t it?”

“I want it for a gentleman.”

“Well, he won’t find it here, as you ought to know, beauty.”

“Brandy then, he said — champagne or fine old brandy.”

“I’ve neither. And all what hasn’t been drunk of what I have got has been put away and will stay put away. You’ve had enough.”

Daisy Arrow made as if to open the reticule which still dangled on her arm.

“Can’t Moll run and fetch some? I’ve got the money, plenty of money.”

“What time do you think it is? The public-houses and the wine shops is all shut up. It’s past midnight.”

“It’s Christmas Day,” said Belle, smiling above her smoking candle. “Peace on earth, goodwill towards men.”

Daisy Arrow stared at her, seemed to shudder, to wince a little, frowned, then tossed her head and once more left the kitchen, holding her candle aslant so that the wax dripped on her skirt.

“Well,” remarked Mrs. Bulke with her air of resigned indignation. “He’s a foreigner all right — champagne and fine old brandy for Daisy Arrow! Who does he think she is?” Suddenly laughing in her throat the landlady limped out on to the stairs. “He doesn’t know his way about, that’s what it is, dearie; he thinks we’re Claridge’s, here at No. 12, that’s what he thinks.” Laboriously mounting the low worn stairs, she added, “Or less he’s blind drunk.”

“I heard his voice,” said Belle following slowly, shivering in the draughts that were so keen outside the stale warmth oft the kitchen. “And he’s sober enough, quite sober.”

— — —

Belle tried to cheat the cold, the half-dark, her own dreadful thoughts, by persistently conning over the things for which she lusted; a warm, luxurious room, a soft bed with down pillows and silken coverlets, a shaded lamp, fine, fashionable clothes, delicate foods, rare wines, attentive servants, a lover devoted and reverent — music, a box at the Opera, a carriage and pair…all these things were in the world and she had none of them and no chance of ever being able to obtain them — no chance. Yet they were enjoyed and despised by thousands of women no wiser than herself — no cleverer, no prettier, no more unscrupulous.

A low hum of talk in the next room to hers distracted her. Daisy Arrow and the foreigner, of course. Belle frowned with ugly distaste.

She had a front room that looked, from the top of the three-storeyed house, on to the straight, prim street. Daisy had the corresponding room at the back, which looked on to the gritty, sooty garden, the backs of dark houses and ash-bins. The other side of the small landing at the stair-head were the empty rooms reserved by Mrs. Bulke for occasional use, or for transient lodgers.

Belle, moving about to keep herself warm, detected the man’s tones, and sorted them from those of the woman — a warm, pleasant, manly voice — she could not distinguish what he was saying, not even in what language he spoke — but English, of course, what other tongue did Daisy Arrow understand?

“My God! What have they to talk about? How could he, who speaks so well, have even looked at Daisy with her cough, her broken teeth, her gaudy rags and her vulgar air?”

She felt vicariously disgraced by the thought of this man of her own class in the next room with Daisy Arrow, as if he had been a brother — at least a relative, and angrily she tried to reason herself out of this folly.

“Tomorrow is Christmas Day — I’ll pile all my clothes on the bed and try to sleep until it is time for me to go to the Cambridge on Boxing Night. Moll will bring me up a cup of tea. Yes, I’ll try to sleep.”

She wondered where she could get opium — wasn’t that a short cut to the inevitable end? Totty Belville had got some opium, but Belle did not know where, and Totty had long since disappeared. The East End, no doubt — but Belle was afraid of the East End with the sailors and Chinamen, she was still an alien to the underworld, still shuddered on the edge of those filthy morasses that soon she must sink into — unless she had the courage — “Curse Daisy for taking that knife away, I believe I could have done it now.”

She began to undress, but the room was so cold that she huddled on her clothes again. She intended to wash her face and hands, but Moll had not emptied the soiled soapy water in the hand-basin, nor put fresh water in the lipless ewer. The short candle was fast burning out, there was only just sufficient uncertain light to see the gaunt shape of the iron bed with the bleak white cotton coverlet and thin blanket, the worn piece of drugget on the floor, the rain stains and marks on the ceiling, the broken window pane patched with brown paper, the chairs with the rushes of the seats sprouting from the frames beneath, the tilting chest of drawers with the top used as a dressing-table.

Throwing her shawl and a rubbed fur jacket on the bed, Belle blew out the candle and still in her clothes got between the ragged sheets, and forced herself, with the obstinacy of despair, to sleep. “Wanderer to the Moon — Wanderer to the Moon.”

— — —

She woke, uneasy, unable to achieve, even in her dreams, her journey to the skies, hardly able to dream at all. The drone of voices next door struck disagreeably on her waking ear. The man’s low notes and Daisy Arrow’s shrill tones filled Belle with uncontrollable exasperation. She struggled from the bed into the bleak cold, crossed to the inner wall and knocked sharply. There was an instant silence as complete as if her knock had been a spell to turn the speakers into stone.

Belle scrambled into bed and drew the clothes to her chin. She was conscious of an utter stillness in the house, and on that stillness her senses, half drugged by fatigue, drifted into oblivion.

— — —

When Belle woke, a blur of bitter daylight was in the room; she had forgotten to pull down the blinds, and her windows, on which the frost had made patterns, looked east. She thought she could hear church bells. What time was it? Six, seven? At what time did it get light on December 25th?